


If You're Going to Write a Comedy Scene, You're Going to Have Some Rat Feces in There

by birdbrains



Series: Old ERF [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Discussion of Consent Issues, Gallows Humor, M/M, deep conditioned triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 19:55:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2885546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdbrains/pseuds/birdbrains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky tries to upset Steve by revealing some of his horrible experiences. It doesn't work, so they eat cake and talk about their feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You're Going to Write a Comedy Scene, You're Going to Have Some Rat Feces in There

**Author's Note:**

> Potentially disturbing content; more details in end notes.

From then on Bucky behaved like a jack-in-the-box, popping up out of nowhere and trying to shock him. He’d been vague about everything before, which Steve realized must have been out of kindness, but Steve had set something off in him.

He was clearly still pretty angry about the sex thing. He knew--well, Steve was pretty sure--that Steve had barely even kissed anyone, and Steve knew how Bucky would act if he gave that as his reason for wanting to wait. Bucky would have been sweet about that, and patient, instead of offended. Steve was thinking he should have just lied.

“You know there’s a lot of triggers,” Bucky said. “A _lot_ of them, so many I couldn’t predict them all if I had a perfect memory. Which I don’t, since they fried me to hell.”

He had come up behind Steve, who was making scrambled eggs for himself on the stove. He stood so close behind him that Steve could feel the edges of him while not touching him exactly. It was a buzzing sensation.

“Some of them are restraints. For when I was being bad,” Bucky said. Steve didn’t say anything to that, so he continued, “Or if they just couldn’t spare anyone to watch me. Just make me so I can’t talk, or I’m paralyzed, or I can only do things I’m directly ordered to do. Make me blind and deaf--that’s more of a straight up punishment. Or make me hurt myself.”

“Did that happen a lot?” Steve asked.

“No, I was good for them most of the time. And it was a waste of resources to injure me or make me incapacitated. Most of the triggers are for useful things like making me so I can’t feel pain or I’m bouncing off the walls with adrenaline. Different stuff for different missions. Super sensitive hearing, other skills like that.”

Bucky had stepped away from him and was standing in front of the refrigerator fiddling with magnets. He had gotten a lot of new ones, and they were all ugly.

“But there’s no point telling you about them.  Eventually, you’re gonna see them all. Multiple times.”

“Multiple times? Can’t we just make a list of the triggers when we find them and then avoid them after that?”

“You’re no fun,” Bucky said.

“You’d rather get paralyzed?”

“Sometimes I feel like it’s either that or just hide out in here and eat oatmeal for the rest of my life,” Bucky admitted. He shook it off. “Anyway. Bet you’re real excited for all of that, right? What about when I’m blind and deaf? Are you gonna sign stuff on me like Helen Keller?”

 “You know how to do that?”

“I know a few sign languages, so I could probably figure it out. But you don’t know any, do you?”

“No.”

“So what are you gonna do?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“ _That’s_ a new one,” Bucky said. He sat down at the table. “Okay.” He thought about it. “I’ll wave my arms when it first happens so you know what’s going on. Touch my hand so I know you’re there, but don’t grab me or anything like that. Just let me feel where I’m going, I know the house pretty well.”

“So what are you planning to do when you’re blind and deaf?”

“Hm. I could practice dancing, I guess. I could feel the vibrations, right? If I start dancing around just turn on some music really loud and put the radio on the floor. Good stuff, not this modern garbage.”

“You don’t need practice dancing,” Steve said.

“Sure I do, it’s been about a million years.” 

“No, I bet you’re still really good. You’re so graceful.” Steve came over and sat down at the table with his eggs. He was waiting for the next thing Bucky was going to say, but Bucky just stared at him. 

“Graceful, huh?”

“Are you fishing? You think you’re not?”

“No...” Bucky was looking at him with his head titled to one side. Something about him had gone softer and almost meditative. He stayed lost in thought for a moment, then said, “Gimme that,” and held out his hand for Steve’s fork, which was full of a bite of eggs.

“Are you sure that’s...”

“What? I don’t think so, but there’s only one way to find out.” Steve handed over the fork and Bucky took and swallowed the bite. “Oh, fuck, Steve, I’m so horny. You gotta do me on the counter,” he said. Steve winced; it took him a split second to realize Bucky was joking. Bucky saw the wince and crowed with laughter. It wasn’t a very kind laugh.

“You want to explain why you’re fucking with me?” Steve asked him.

“Not fucking with you,” Bucky said blandly. He handed the fork back. “So. Eggs are safe. I can eat eggs for days. Eggs and oatmeal and water and nutrient shakes.”

“Some kinds of cake,” Steve said. 

“I like cake. Cake’s good.” Bucky turned his head for a minute and said, “I’m gonna get some. That okay?” He shrugged. “Never mind, not your business if I get cake.”

“You know at the grocery store they have the little ingredient list on the boxes.” 

“Yeah, thank God for small favors,” Bucky said putting on his jacket.

///

Bucky ate his cake on the couch, with Steve, and they talked about movies. Even though Bucky kept acting mean, he wasn’t going to drop his genial, rambling tendencies. That was new. When Bucky used to get mad, he just glowered. Now he kept the same front up and let something spiteful show through. Maybe it was because the front wasn’t his real personality anymore, but there was no point thinking about it.

“Do you ever think about how all the cute girls in movies are all dead?” Bucky asked.

“All the time,” Steve said, “but it’s not like we were getting them anyway.” 

“Hmm.” Bucky considered. “That’s the best way to look at it, I guess.”

“It’s kind of nice how they’re still there in the movies. They’re not all the way gone like regular people.” Steve was starting to feel a little morose.

“I think after I fell, I used to think I was with some of the girls from the movies,” Bucky said. 

“How’s that work?”

“Well, it was just kind of confusing. They have me in this cell most of the time. My arm’s killing me, so I got to daydreaming as much as I possibly could. After a while it got kind of hard to tell what was a real person and what was a fantasy. Not that that’s a bad thing--I gave myself this super improved sex life.”

“Sounds cushy.”

“It was for a while, and then it _really_ wasn’t. ‘Cause I was jerking off a lot, and they didn’t like it. Not appropriate for a weapon to have a sex drive.” Bucky smiled at Steve and tapped his fingers together like scissors. Steve didn’t get it, so Bucky leaned into his ear and stage-whispered, “ _They cut my dick in half_.”

Steve burst out laughing, which was mostly from shock, but if it made him look like a big man it was pretty convenient. “Uh, which way?”

Bucky beamed and now wiggled his fingers around like two legs. “Like this. It was all still attached--they just halved it. It grew back together, if you were wondering.”

“Well, that’s...nice. That it’s back together.” 

“Wouldn’t it have been better if they each just grew into a new one, though, like the Hydra? I was kind of hoping they would.”

“You were not,” Steve said. “What would you do with two dicks?”

“You know, I never really thought about that before. I just figured it’d be funny.”

“It would be funny if we had sex,” Steve admitted. “You could just spring it on me.”

“About that,” Bucky said. 

Oh, no. “You going to tell me you have three?”

“I didn’t realize it was still on the table,” Bucky said.

“I was being hypothetical,” Steve said. “I mean, you don’t actually have two dicks.”

“Yeah, but like...you’re not exactly trying to discourage me.”

“No, I’m not,” Steve admitted. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to, and I’m not a good liar.”

“But you don’t want to. You don’t ‘feel right about it.’” Bucky did that quotes thing with his fingers. Steve felt annoyed that Bucky could do things like that so easily--yeah, Bucky had spent more time with modern people than Steve had, but Steve had definitely socialized with them more.

“Would you feel right about it if you were me?” Steve asked.

“That’s not the point--it’s not you, it’s me,” Bucky said. “You don’t want me or you think I’m too fucked up to handle it. Or you don’t want me because you think I’m too fucked up to handle it. Which is it?”

“Thought experiment,” Steve said. “What about I’m not the most experienced guy on the planet.”

“What about that, huh?” Bucky said, his face softening. Steve was counting on that.

“So what if, I don’t know, we didn’t know each other as well as we do, and I was embarrassed, and I didn’t want you to know.”

“You better not ever be embarrassed about it,” Bucky said, “or let me hear about anyone making you feel shitty about it--”

“Of course I’m not, it's an _example_. You know much worse stuff about me than that and I’m not gonna hide that stuff either. But let’s say I did want to hide it--say I really hung the moon on what you thought of me, and I kept pushing for you to hurry up and start on me and do everything really fast. And it seemed like it might hurt me or something but I was pushing anyway.”

“Full disclosure, the blood from this thought experiment isn’t going just to my brain,” Bucky said.

“Okay, okay. It’s just the closest thing I can think of. If somebody seemed so worried about what you thought, wouldn’t you want to be careful, even if you really wanted to?”

“Oh so I’m the blushing virgin in this scenario.”

“I know it’s not the same thing. It’s just--” 

“‘Cause I fucked a lot of people before, not during, but I was hoping after, except I ran into this roadblock of the only person I want is being _careful_ and considerate of my virtue _._ ” It was hard to tell but Bucky still seemed more or less even-keeled, friendly, though his gaze was a little bit narrower than it had been a minute ago.

“Bucky. You do know what I’m talking about.”

“The wrong soldier,” Bucky admitted. “Okay.” 

“You know I heard you ask me if you were allowed to get cake.” Steve hadn’t been going to bring it up, and Bucky grimaced at him. “I know you caught yourself. I don’t mean to blow it out of proportion. I just want to be careful--I’m sorry if that pisses you off.” He added, “Doesn’t mean I don’t think about it every day and twice on Sundays.”

Bucky smiled at that. “You really do?”

“Well, close to. Maybe a little more.”

“I liked when you said I was graceful.”

“Everyone says that about you. Or thinks it. Just having eyes isn’t anything to thank me for.”

Bucky put his empty cake box down on the table and eyed Steve, who felt all the air rush out of his lungs. Bucky had never fixed him with quite that look before and Steve felt like he was tiny. He felt like a rabbit or a mouse or something. Bucky laughed.

“Aw, hey, I’m not gonna hurt you. I just--can I kiss you?” He held his hands up. “It’s just me, I promise.”

“It’s not like that, Buck,” Steve said, pained--he didn’t think Bucky was tricking or manipulating him. It was more like the opposite. He just didn’t see how a person could know what he wanted when he still thought he had to ask permission to eat. He tried to say that, but it was hard. Bucky didn’t touch him, not exactly, but his right hand came up so close to Steve’s face that there was that buzzing sensation again, all along his cheek and his jaw. He looked in Bucky’s eyes and moved his face infinitesimally closer to transition from buzzing to actual touching. Bucky looked surprised. Steve moved his face against Bucky’s fingers--he just wanted to feel how soft they were, but then he felt like given half a chance he was about to do something stupid like try to take them in his mouth or kiss them, so he brought his right hand up and took Bucky’s hand and pulled their joined hands down in between them.

“So, no,” Bucky said, but he didn’t look mad.

“Correction: not right now,” said Steve. Bucky grinned and it seemed unusually quick and unguarded. He always had a tendency for slow, creeping smiles, probably because they were unbelievably attractive on him--but this was nice too. It was really nice. Steve shook his head a little, trying to clear up the parts of him that seemed to be melting, flopping, collapsing, stumbling--

“Oh, Steve,” Bucky said, and he was looking at Steve in a way that embarrassed him but still somehow wasn’t a bad feeling. “You really do like me.”

“How could you ever think that I didn’t,” Steve said.

“I don’t know,” Bucky said. “Just being a dumb fuck, like usual, I guess.”

He had pulled both his hands into his lap and was holding them there carefully. When Steve saw that he said, “You can hug me, if you want to.”

“Good,” Bucky said, and took him in his arms a minute--and Steve felt physically baffled to find Bucky a little smaller than him, the whole conversation he had been forgetting. Being big wasn’t something he ever regretted, but suddenly it hurt a little. “Missed you, punk,” Bucky said, his breath so close to Steve that it stunned him.

“Me too,” he said.

“And I _still_ miss you,” Bucky said, squeezing him and then letting him go, “‘cause I’m not all the way here to be with you right now, and by now you know that, don’t you? But I’ll figure it out.” He picked up his cake box and took it over to the kitchen to rinse it out. “I’m gonna go work on that computer thing. Thanks, Steve.”

“What for,” Steve said.

“For liking me, I guess,” Bucky said.

**Author's Note:**

> There is a reference to genital torture/mutilation which is described very clearly but briefly (and in dialogue about the past, not something happening in the narration).
> 
> If you haven't read the other parts, basically my jam is Steve and Bucky speaking very flippantly about awful things and joking about them because that's their way of dealing with it; if that bothers you, the whole story is likely to bother you.


End file.
